


Splintered

by Catsarecutebutaliens



Series: trauma blues [2]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Angst, Character Study, Dark Doctor (Doctor Who), Drabble Collection, Drabbles, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Gen, Implied/Referenced Sex, Memory Alteration, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, does not apply to all chapters/drabbles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-11
Updated: 2020-03-27
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:15:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 1,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22666864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catsarecutebutaliens/pseuds/Catsarecutebutaliens
Summary: A collection of drabbles following and inspired by season twelve but without major spoilers.The Doctor is not human. She keeps up the facade when she is around them, but once they are gone her mask begins to slip.
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor & Yasmin Khan & Graham O'Brien & Ryan Sinclair, Thirteenth Doctor/Yasmin Khan
Series: trauma blues [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1712221
Comments: 9
Kudos: 63





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, just a quick note. I will warn for spoilers if needed at the beginning of the chapter and add possible content warnings as well. This is basically just a collection of drabbles I come up with while season twelve moves on, though they will not stop with the final episode. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy these, I am always open for requests in the comments and you can find me on tumblr under the same name.

She's softly holding her, hands cupping her cheeks while her thumbs wipe away the tears running down her skin.

It was never supposed to happen like this, but the Doctor knew it would be inevitable. After months and years of traveling together, accidents were bound to happen. The pain was weaving itself around her chest, tightening its grip with every heartbeat, every memory erased.

"Yasmin Khan, you've been fantastic."

A whimper came over her lips, small and frightened, but she was unable to beg for mercy. There was none left anyway.

"Such a pity it has to end like this."


	2. Chapter 2

"How many, Doctor? How many have you killed like this? How many _did_ you kill?"

It was the question she was most afraid of, caused by the seeds of doubt and horror growing in their chests. She wished she had stopped counting, had never remembered the numbers of lives lost by her hand. But no matter how far she came, how long she kept running, history always followed. 

That's why it was easier to lose them: the questions stopped, even when her hearts broke.

Her answer was shallow and so were her excuses for letting them die. 

No more questions.


	3. Chapter 3

The Doctor was stuck.

Her mind was racing, thoughts forming and changing, considering all the information that had been thrown at her during those last hours. All she needed was quiet, time to let go and find that one spark of hope dying she was still holding onto.

They were here, in the Tardis, taking up space and being kind and asking questions she refused to answer.

Her senses longed for burned air and bitter ashes, for painful memories and the heat of ever-burning fires. For the lost home she had never wanted them to see. 

The Doctor was stuck.


	4. Chapter 4

"You're the Doctor. Whoever you were in the past or are in the future, we know who you are right now." 

She likes it when they validate her, needs it, even. Their words fill up the empty space around her hearts and weigh them down, pulling her back to the person she has always wanted to be. It doesn't matter that their words are not true, that she knows they are incapable of ever knowing her - past, present or future.

The smile creeps onto her face almost subconsciously and when she looks up at them, she almost feels human again.


	5. Chapter 5

The Doctor was unraveling, slowly and precisely, and she was unable to stop it from happening. The room was spinning, time and reality mixing and forming anew every time she made a decision. 

It was a high like nothing else, shaping history and the future at the same time with no one to stop her.

She could feel their fear, their shame dripping from their eyes once they realize what they helped her do and she soaks in it, taking in every last drop and searing it into her hearts. 

The Doctor is not good. 

She has no mercy left.


	6. Chapter 6

They were going to leave her.

She had been tasting it in the air for weeks, had seen their heavy looks and goodbyes every time they went back to their lives.  
One day, they simply wouldn't come back and a part of her was glad about it, happy that she could stop trying.

They made her better, forced her to keep up her facade, and without them, she knew what she could become.

Whispers inside of her mind, telling her to not be alone, to be the person she wanted to be.

Maybe it was time to change her name.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In honor of Valentine's Day. 
> 
> I'm aro and somehow the Doctor has latched onto that as well. I have a dozen different orientation and gender headcanons for her, so this is definitely not the only one, but I enjoy it very much. Thank you to everyone who takes some time to read those little drabbles, I really enjoy writing them :D

The Doctor doesn't love.

She looks at the stars, at galaxies, planets, and constellations, and all she feels is a deep emptiness overshadowing the affection for the life around her.

Maybe she has loved, a long time ago, when love was still soft and kind and didn't make her bleed.

The Doctor doesn't love and she doesn't want to.

There are more important things to do like saving the universe and its people and deciding to keep running from the memories she wishes she could forget.

The Doctor doesn't love and her planet burns.

There is nothing left to love.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another aro Doctor, this time with some Thasmin thrown in. CW for referenced sexual content, nothing graphic though.

The Doctor looks at her and all she sees is memories.

There are the names she is too afraid of saying out loud, faces that still pain her hearts. She can see them all and she pretends not to because then Yaz would realize who she is, hurt and broken, and she'd leave.

The Doctor doesn't love, not in the way Yaz loves her, so she pretends if only to feel her touch, lips, hands all over her body and forget the images burned into her mind.

She knows it won't last forever, but right now, it's all she has.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something slightly lighter with the finale drawing closer - let's hope they all make it out alive.

There were still moments, rare and far in-between now, where Yaz ceased to exist, and instead, she was looking at someone else. Sometimes it was her smile reminding her of Rose or the way she insisted on not leaving her when she needed her most that screamed Clara.   
Some jokes sparked flashes of Bill, and her bright curiosity was so very Amy, it made her hearts ache with long-gone memories.

She hated those moments as much as she treasured them. 

The Doctor has been running for a long time, and sometimes she forgot to look back. Yaz was her reminder.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is just some tired rambling after thinking about rhe Doctor for too long. I think in the end, without Ko Sharmus interrupting, it would have come down to this anyway - or at least that's what would have happened in my angsty version of it. Enjoy!

The Doctor was tired.

Her mind was weighing her down, her body hurt and fatigued and begging for a break. No matter what she did, everything always ended the same: With her broken and alone.

Some time ago, there had been people she cared about and that cared about her, but they were dead and gone and it was better this way.

She looked at Koschei, really looked at him, and his eyes were a mirror to hers. 

They were both so, so tired of living.

So she pressed the button and spared them both the pain of going on.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was inspired by this post:  
> https://picnokinesis.tumblr.com/post/613051802387087360/aziraphalesbian-karolinadeaen-the-first-face
> 
> I have a LOT of feelings about Grace and never really gotten them out, so maybe there's a full story to follow, who knows. For now, some sadness must suffice.

There had been a sudden emptiness in her head the moment Grace died, a void left from something she didn't know existed. 

It wasn't a bond, never, not anymore, not after everything that had happened, but it was close enough for the wound to never close.

When she looked at Ryan or Graham or even Yaz, there was always something missing.

The first face this face saw, the person so like her she didn't need to remember herself, the one in seven billion she wanted to show every star in the universe.

But all the Doctor brought her was destruction.


	12. Chapter 12

Feelings were hard.

Everything about them was, from causing them to feeling them to overcoming them in a desperate attempt to keep herself from drowning in them. 

She tried her her best, always has, but she was running out of time, emotions escaping her mind like water seeping through sand until it was frightfully empty.

Other times she was too good at keeping it together, at letting it build up until her head felt like it was bursting and she wanted nothing more than to feel numb again.

Feelings were hard.

But everything was better than feeling nothing at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another one that may as well be called "Alex projects onto the Doctor again". 
> 
> The thought behind this is the difficult relationship I imagine the doc to have with processing emotions and dissociation. Even though the latter is an excellent escape mechanism, it doesn't work in the long run.


End file.
